(JNS) Three U.S. Democratic senators have urged further sanctions against “extremist settlers” and their supporters, singling out in particular the Amana (“Covenant”) organization, which works to develop Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.
“We cannot allow a reckless and dangerous minority to continue to endanger Israelis and Palestinians alike through theft, arson, intimidation, violence, and worse,” the senators wrote in a Sept. 27 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
“Targeted sanctions have long been a valuable tool in holding violent extremists accountable for their actions and creating space for peaceful and more rational actors to work,” they added.
The signatories are Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Mark Warner (D-Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The senators expressed strong support for the Biden administration’s earlier sanctions against Israeli individuals and groups, such as the Lehava and Tzav 9 organizations.
They urged the same sanctions be applied to Amana.
“Amana has a long and well-documented history of supporting extremist settlers who expropriate Palestinian land and threaten Palestinian landholders, farmers, and shepherds. Amana has played a central role in forming and sustaining hill-top outposts illegal under Israeli law, often by granting loans to bankroll their start,” they wrote.
Were the United States to sanction Amana it would join Canada, which imposed sanctions on the group in June under its Special Economic Measures (Extremist Settler Violence) Regulations.
Amana, the settlement movement of Gush Emunim, was established in 1976, becoming a registered association in 1978, to help develop communities in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, the Galilee, Negev and Gush Katif (a settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip evacuated in 2005).
Its activities include establishing communities, recruiting families and building homes.
The group has been in the sights of activists opposed to Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria for some time. In 2018, Peace Now petitioned to force the Binyamin Regional Council to reveal to whom it distributed funds. It found that more than 50% of the council’s funds went to Amana between 2013 and 2015.
Peace Now then petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice to block Judea and Samaria municipalities from transferring funds to Amana, claiming it was a private cooperative and that funding it was against Interior Ministry guidelines, which only allowed such funds to go to NGOs and public institutions.
In December 2019, the High Court temporarily ordered that municipalities must seek court approval before sending funds to private organizations. However, in 2021, the court ultimately rejected Peace Now’s petition, determining that Amana met the criteria of a “public institution,” removing any hindrances to transferring money to it.
Starting in 2023, the Biden administration acted against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.
In December 2023, the U.S. State Department announced a visa restriction policy blocking individuals it deemed dangerous to “peace, security, or stability” in Judea and Samaria.
That month, the U.S. also blocked a shipment of more than 27,000 U.S.-made rifles for the Israel Police out of fear they could make their way into the hands of “extremist Israeli settlers.”
Leaders of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria said at the time that the U.S. was trying to appear “fair and balanced” even though the number of violent acts committed by Jewish extremists in the region is minuscule.
On Dec. 31, 2023, nearly two dozen Knesset members wrote to President Joe Biden, requesting an explanation of his administration’s accusations of “settler violence,” particularly as the numbers didn’t back up the White House’s claims.
“The data at our disposal indicates that the scope of these incidents is limited to a very small number of isolated events, which pales in contrast with the vastly larger scope of violent incidents perpetrated by Palestinian Arabs against the residents of these same Jewish communities,” the MKs wrote.
On Feb. 1, 2024, the White House issued an executive order and the State Department sanctioned four men: David Chai Chasdai, Einan Tanjil, Shalom Zicherman and Yinon Levi.
In the “Executive Order Imposing Certain Sanctions on Persons Undermining Peace, Security, and Stability in the West Bank,” Biden said selected individuals’ would be denied access to property they held in the U.S., prohibited from receiving funds from U.S. citizens, and prevented from entering the U.S.
“High levels of extremist settler violence … has reached intolerable levels” and is a threat to the “peace, security, and stability” of not only Israel but the entire Middle east, the executive order stated.
It said that “settler violence” undermined U.S. foreign policy objectives, namely, a two-state solution.
In August, as the U.S. added still more groups and individuals to the sanctions list, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office weighed in: “Israel views with utmost severity the imposition of sanctions on citizens of Israel. The issue is in a pointed discussion with the United States.”
Critics of the administration’s policy point out that it hasn’t taken action against Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria, despite a vast differential in the number of violent acts they commit vs. those by Jews.
Israel Defense Forces’ statistics for 2023 found a 350% increase in Arab terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria over 2022 levels, with 608 attacks.
Three hundred of the 608 attacks were shooting attacks—the highest number since the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005, the IDF reported.
Also, the Palestinian Authority maintains its “pay-for-slay” program that rewards terrorists who carry out attacks on Israelis, but the U.S. administration has not sanctioned that body, and instead has looked for ways to keep it afloat.
The White House has called for the P.A. to take charge of a post-Hamas Gaza Strip, a view not shared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said he will not replace “Hamastan with Fatahstan.”
The Biden administration continues to defend its sanctions on Israeli individuals and groups, including last month after a pro-Israel Christian group filed suit in Texas, alleging that the sanctions constitute religious discrimination and violate their First Amendment rights of expression and association.
“We have been quite clear that we expect Israel to take actions to crack down on settler violence, and if they don’t, we will,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
